It is a regular occurrence to hear about a topic that you have never come across before in Formula One. Something that came up recently was a season of racing that Martin Brundle did, but not according to the end of season results.
The 1984 season began in Brazil with a number of debutants on the grid, including Ayrton Senna and England’s very own Martin Brundle. Racing for the Tyrrell team, Brundle was not expected to be challenging for wins and indeed his results largely reflected that of a team running in the mid-field.
That being said, his season still contained some notable performances and incidents, including –
- Brazil – In a race where reliability became a severe issue for many of the teams, Brundle’s Tyrrell held together and he was able to finish 5th, overtaking Patrick Tambay (who ran out of fuel) on the final lap.
- Monaco – A weekend to forget for Brundle (possibly quite literally given the concussion he must have suffered). A huge crash in qualifying resulted in him running back to the pits to jump in the spare car, only to ask on exiting the garage which way he needed to turn. After being pulled from qualifying as a result, he could only watch as his teammate finished on the podium.
- Detroit – In what was Brundle’s best performance of his debut season, he was able to take the car from a starting position of 11th all the way up to a spot on the podium in 2nd by the end of the race. Helped by a few retirements, Brundle found himself in 3rd and closing in on Elio de Angelis who he passed with seven laps to go. Now 20 seconds behind Nelson Piquet, he closed the gap quickly but was unable to catch Piquet with enough time to make the pass for the win, narrowly missing out on a maiden victory.
All of these results became irrelevant though when, shortly after the Detroit race finished, impurities in the Tyrrell water injection system were discovered by the FIA, along with lead balls acting as ballast. As the water containing a percentage of fuel had been topped up during the race this was seen to break the regulations, which at the time banned refuelling. This, combined with the unsecured ballast, led to Tyrrell being disqualified from the 1984 Championship, with all previous results declared void.
Interestingly, some saw this as an active attempt by the FIA to remove the only remaining non-turbo team from the grid (Tyrrell themselves adopted a turbo engine mid-way through the following season).
To make matters worse, despite being disqualified the team decided to race on and attended the Dallas Grand Prix. During qualifying Brundle suffered another huge crash, this time hitting a concrete wall injuring both of his feet and ankles. The injuries forced him to miss the remainder of the 1984 season.
Amusingly, Brundle revealed during the 2021 Belgium Grand Prix that he still has his 2nd place trophy from the race in Detroit (despite being disqualified), proudly displaying it in his collection alongside three metal screws that were used to hold his ankle together during his recovery from the accident in Dallas to “prove that he existed in 1984”.
While never counting towards his record, Brundle’s debut season in F1 was certainly eventful. It put him on the map as a potential future star and laid the foundation for his career.